


the long, slightly bias story of Diana Ladris

by midnightventstonobody



Category: Gone Series - Michael Grant
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Diana's life at coates, F/M, Friends to Enemies, They're all fifteen in this, implied/referenced eating disorder
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:27:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21895123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midnightventstonobody/pseuds/midnightventstonobody
Summary: Diana's life at Coates academy.
Relationships: Dekka Talent/Diana Ladris (One-sided), Diana Ladris/Caine Soren
Kudos: 6





	the long, slightly bias story of Diana Ladris

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry, this is sort of all over the place. I was only writing this for fun but thought I'd publish it anyway. I hope you enjoy reading! :)))

Diana has faced a lot of struggles in her life. Being the first to know her dad was cheating on her mother, the police finding out she framed her father for manslaughter, the list honestly goes on. The teen never thought, however, she would get stuck in this situation. But, Diana guesses that attempting to lug a large suitcase filled with decently heavy items up five flights of stairs gives you time for self-reflection.

She decided to take a thirty-second rest on the fourth floor when she hears an amused chuckle above her. Raising her eyes, she first spots the fancy shoes on mystery man’s feet. Diana doesn’t know a lot about men's footwear, but those looked like they costed some serious money. She continues to analyse the boy, her left hand gripping the suitcase slightly tighter because… well… hot-damn. He was leaning his back against the wall adjacent to the exit, dangling a cigarette between the fingers of his left hand. His clothes looked expensive, but not the formal kind of expensive. His entire outfit was screaming I have more money and therefore more worth than you.

Diana realised she had been staring too long when the rich teen cleared his throat, raising an eyebrow. She glanced down at her suitcase, glaring at the offensive object. Excellent, she now had to ungracefully heave this atrociously heavy content-holder up another flight of stairs. To make matters worse, this time with an adorable boy watching her every move.

“Caine.” Diana’s head snaps up at the simple, arrogantly toned word. Her eyes meet the dark-haired boy’s. Tilting her head and raising an eyebrow, Diana can’t help but smirk. She contemplates answering the egotistical teen, but decides against it and brushes past him, leaning her back against the door and holding steady eye contact with him before exiting the stairwell.

She runs a hand through her hair, flipping a plentiful amount of it onto the left. Diana can’t help but look down at the floor and grin secretively. The first boy she ran into here was an absolute charmer, not to mention gorgeous too. If boys like that surrounded her, Diana might be alright here. She stopped short in front of a counter, where a lady was humming an awfully pitchy tune.

“Hello dear, how are you?” Diana didn’t bother answering or returning the receptionists greeting, wanting to get straight to her room and unpack. Honestly just wanting to be anywhere but here, where she could feel several pairs of curious eyes watching her every move.

“They told me to come here to get my room number” The woman seemed unphased by Diana’s brisk tone, opening her mouth yet again to reply and most likely ramble on for ten minutes, which Diana did not have the patience for. “My name is Diana Ladris, can you just look me up on the computer.” What she should have said as a question was a statement, a command clear from the teenage girl’s demanding voice.

“Of course. You’re number is…” Diana let her eyes drift to the four other people in the room as the lady typed into her computer. Despite blatantly glaring at them, none of the teens looked away or appeared the slightest bit guilty for staring at her. “T37! Let me find someone to help guide you-”

“I’m fine,” Diana turned her head towards the woman, and couldn’t resist flashing a menacingly fake smile “thanks.” She spins on her heel, exiting the room with her head held high, lazily dragging the suitcase behind her.

She does three sharp knocks on door T37, tapping her foot impatiently as she hears the voices inside the room quiet down. She stares down at her nails, taking on the form of complete and utter disregard. Also known as channelling her inner ‘Caine’. She may have just met the teen, but Diana is no stranger to hierarchy and boy did that egomaniac sure act like the top dog. If Diana wanted to be anyone here, she’d need to follow his lead. The one thing Diana does not want to seem like was someone who cares. People who care get hurt. The door swings open.

“Hi! You must be the new roommate, uhh, Fiona?” Being very slow and tedious, Diana lifts her eyes to her loud, energetic ‘roommate.’ She drops her left hand, letting it dangle lazily and lifts her chin, causing her to look down at the other girl, just like stairwell boy had done to her.

“Diana.” Simple, a first name. The red-head in front of her physically deflated at her tone, opening the door and stepping aside.

“Oh… well, come on in Diana.” She strolled into the room and let the red-head close the door behind her. Diana couldn’t help but notice that her roommate had grabbed the suitcase Diana has seemingly forgotten out in the hallway.

“Hey, Bri you didn’t say it was the new roommate!” A girl with dark hair peered over the sofa, grinning at Diana. “Hi, I’m Taylor. Great to meet you! If you’re looking for a place to leave your stuff, your room is the one just there.” She pointed to the left of the couch she was on, where a plain oak door stood.

"Oh, speaking of, we’ve cleaned out your room. The girl who was here before you used an insane amount of perfume, but I think we’ve managed to air it all out. Unless you like the smell? Do you have a key yet? Where did you get that suitcase? It's gorgeous! Looks bulky, did you have to carry it up all those stairs by yourself?”

“Woah, Bri, calm down on the questions. She seems a little shy-” Diana’s eyes snap over to Taylor at this, her glare going unnoticed by the two girls in the room “and you’re probably just overwhelming her.”

“I’m not shy.” She snaps, raising her head the slightest bit higher. Diana did not want to appear as some shy, poor scared girl coming to this ‘big bad place.’

“Oh… Sorry! You seem really quiet; you’ve hardly talked, so I just assumed…” The girl trailed off at Diana’s hard stare, both roommates watching her grab her case and petulantly storm off to the room Taylor had gestured to earlier.

Diana finished organising her clothes several hours after her embarrassing meltdown. Feeling a sense of accomplishment, she perched herself on the edge of the single king-sized bed, looking around the small space. She had to admit; the room was better than she thought, more like a mini-apartment than a dorm, most likely because only the worst of kids go here so they could spend more money on fewer students. Her thoughts were interrupted by two soft knocks on the oak wood door.

“Diana?” Said girl was pretty sure that was Taylor’s voice. “We’re sorry for upsetting you. Brianna has just gone down to get us dinner from the cafeteria. You’re welcome to come out and eat with us.” Diana multitasked in listening to Taylor’s retreating footsteps and fighting an internal battle against herself.

She knew the best way to keep up this cold, heartless exterior was to remain boxed in the small room. Her mind was telling her not to eat the food because taking anything from them would show that she needed them.

However, a different part of her wanted to leave her room and talk with these girls, get to know them. She would be living with them for an immeasurable amount of time anyway. It would be better if they could all at least get along.

It took her ten minutes. Eventually, the latter of the two options won and Diana stood, brushing down her skirt and grabbing a pair of heels. She still wanted to appear taller, have that slight bit of power over the other girls.

“Hey, so glad you decided to join us, this is gonna be awesome!” Diana offered Taylor a friendly smile, politely thanking her and sitting next to her on the couch. She liked Taylor. Taylor was quieter than Brianna, more of an observant type than loud and boisterous. There were two couches in an L shape, surrounding the coffee table where she assumed they’d be eating.

“Where’s the cafeteria?” Diana asked. She wanted to strike up a conversation and she honestly didn’t know where anything was in this seven-floor maze of a building, excluding Caine, who appeared to enjoy holding unlit cigarettes and leaning against walls in stairwells.

“Just a floor above us, it is so convenient! Floors four and five are for rooms, six and seven are the classes. One is a reception area and two is the teacher’s quarters, which we aren’t allowed to go into.” While Taylor was talking, Diana flattened out her skirt, tracing her finger mindlessly on the patterns there and nodding half-mindedly at the information. The front door, situated two metres directly behind them, is slammed open and Brianna’s chirpy voice abruptly broke the peaceful atmosphere. “I’m back! I brought Pizza and Dekka. Her roommate is acting like a bitch again, so I thought we could have a girls night- Oh, Diana! Awesome that you’re here! Well, I mean, obviously you’re here, I just mean that you’re with us in the living room!” It was then that a dark-skinned girl emerged from behind the rambling teenager, dangerously balancing two cups of chips on top of four plain boxes of what Diana assumed was pizza.

“Bri, you’re rambling again. Just take a breath, alright? Your new roommate isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. You’ve got plenty of time to talk her head off.” Diana shifted, uncomfortable with being told where she was or wasn’t going. She did, however, like this Dekka girl. She could easily stop Brianna from going on and on. Dekka wobbled over to them, Taylor leaping up to grab the chips from the top of the pile as they put all the food on the coffee table.

“Sorry guys. What’re we watching?” Brianna shut the door with her foot and came to sit down, all four of their drinks in a cup holder.

“I thought we could talk? I mean we know nothing about Diana yet!” Brianna and Dekka sat on the couch adjacent to the one Diana was currently seated on, Taylor sat back down next to her. Before continuing, now speaking directly to Diana. “It’d be awesome to get to know you, especially with Dekka here because she’ll be staying more and more often now that her roommate has a boyfriend. Oh, hey, that's all goods with you, right?” Diana glanced at Dekka, who had a hopeful smile on her face as she held out a paper plate with a slice of plain cheese pizza on it. Diana saw this for what it was, a peace offering.

“Yeah, yeah that’s fine,” Diana said. She gently took the plate from Dekka’s outstretched hand, picking at the piece of pizza as Dekka started talking.

“Thank you so much. It is great to know I can come here whenever I want; no one wants to live with a terrible roommate, right?” Dekka leant back in her seat, grinning lazily at her slice of pizza.

“God, don’t even get me started on terrible roommates. The girl we had here before you, Diana, was the worst. Like, using-our-toothbrush-without-asking worst.” Taylor shook her head, chuckling at what Brianna said before contributing to the conversation.

“Yeah, in all honesty, I feared we were gonna have another awful roommate when you first showed up.” Diana turned her body to face Taylor, amused smirk contradicting her offended eyebrow raise.

“Excuse you?”

“Oh, come on! You can’t deny that you had this big don’t-mess-with-me aura the minute you entered our room!” Diana shrugged sheepishly at Taylor and turned just in time to see Brianna tossing a screwed up napkin at her. Dekka leant back to avoid the line of fire.

“No joke, you were giving me major Soren vibes the second I opened the door,” Brianna responds as she catches the napkin Diana tosses back at her.

“Who?”

“Oh, just some dick who thinks he runs the school.” Brianna scrunched her nose up, shaking her head disapprovingly at the mere thought of this ‘dick’. "His hobbies including loitering and holding unlit cigarettes. But not like, fault-in-our-stars-metaphor cigarettes. Pure, asshole-cooler-than-you cigarettes.” Diana couldn’t help practically jumping out of her seat.

“Stairwell boy!!” All three heads whipped towards her, similar expressions of surprise on their faces.

“Uh… what?” Dekka was the one to question her outburst, as the other two attempted to school their shocked expressions.

“Sorry…” Diana settled back onto the couch, smoothing her skirt once more and smiling shyly. “I met the boy you’re talking about is all. Caine?” She couldn’t stop the smirk from creeping onto her face at the memory of that conceited boy.

“Woah, actually? Met as in, had an actual conversation with him?”

“Not really, he just told me his name and watched me pitifully lug a hefty suitcase up the stairs.” Taylor and Brianna giggle quietly, Dekka just listening to Diana with a soft smile.

“Still, that is remarkable considering that man thinks he’s too good to look your way- well, I don’t mean you. I mean any of us.” Diana nods and offers an amused expression at Brianna to prevent her from rambling and show the girl that she understood. “He thinks he’s so much better than all of us. That we don’t deserve his mere gaze, let alone actual words.” Diana rolled her eyes at that. She’d already anticipated that kind of attitude from stairwell boy but had hoped he’d have some sort of redeeming quality.

“Hey is the pizza alright? You haven’t even touched it.” Diana can’t help but glare on instinct at Dekka, who is merely frowning at her in concern.

“It’s fine. I don’t like cheese.”

“Oh, no worries! You should’ve just said, Taylor and Brianna keep the cupboards stocked with food.” Dekka is standing and on her way behind the couches to the kitchen before Diana can stop her. “Would you like some toast? There’s some cooked pasta leftovers in here, what about those? Or we have some two-minute noodles?” Diana snapped her eyes closed, attempting to slow her beating heart before asking.

“Is there anything with… fewer carbs?” She words her question very carefully, not sure how these girls would react to dieting. She wasn’t really. Dieting that is. Diana was just cautious about what she ate. Also, physically being able to spot the fat on the pizza in her lap made her stomach churn. She raised her eyes to see Taylor frowning at her on her right.

“Why would you need to avoid carbs? You’re gorgeous Diana. Like, fully perfect body gorgeous.” Diana went back to playing with her skirt, feeling like a child under Taylor’s scrutinising gaze. She heard Dekka close the cupboards and come back over, sitting on the arm of the couch Diana and Taylor were on. Brianna sensed the severity of this situation and came over to join them, wedging herself between Diana and Taylor.

“Who’ve you got to impress here? We’re all friends. The ones outside this room will either be fine with you or not give you the time of day, there's no in-between and you can’t change their mind.” Taylor’s statement reassured her. Diana took a tentative bite of the cheesy slice. However, she couldn’t help but feel the drive and determination to be the person to change their minds. Diana doesn’t think Taylor realised what kind of challenge she’d just pegged in the back of the brunette's head. But for now, that could be ignored.

Sometime later in the night, Dekka had switched the television on, and Diana had moved over as much as possible to give Dekka room, all four of them squished on the two-seater. It gave Diana a feeling of comfort she couldn’t quite define. It was four in the morning when they decided to retire, Dekka grabbing a blanket from the cupboard and lying back down on the couch she’d been sitting on at the start. Diana fell asleep fast, which was almost unheard of for her. Maybe this place wouldn’t be so bad after all.


End file.
